House of Windsor Food & Travel Diary

Image: Dino De Luca / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A Typical Moroccan Meal
The midday meal is the main meal, except during the holy month of Ramadan, and large servings are the norm.
The meal usually begins with a series of hot and cold dishes. These are known as mukabalatt ‘little dishes’, which, even in the most humble household, three or four dishes are prepared. dips, cooked vegetable salads, root veggies simmered in chermoula, dishes spiked with za’atar, olives, plain or marinated in harissa, chermoula or other concoctions. The main course is the tagine, or a stew, often a lamb or chicken dish, a heaping plate of couscous topped with meats and vegetables.
There are some rules that govern mealtimes. The head of the household announces the start of the meal, and a servant or young family member circulates with a jug of water-usually rose-scented- washing the hands of every person at the meal. This is an important ritual, performed before meals such as these.
Meals are served upon a low table, and diners are seated on the floor. Food served on shallow platters or tagine (with its lid off), is set upon the table, and diners then help themselves, using hands to pick up food. Food is conveyed from the platter to the mouth with the first three fingers of a hand, and bread is used as a ‘utensil’. Hands are washed again at the end of the meal.
Sliced fruit is often served at the end of a meal. One dessert dish is kaab el ghzal (“gazelle’s horns”), which is a pastry stuffed with almond paste and topped with sugar. Another is honey cakes, which is essentially pretzel shaped pieces of dough deep-fried and dipped into a hot pot of honey and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

The Moroccan Kitchen
The Moroccan kitchen, even the modern ones, tends to be rather Spartan. Tasks are customarily done by hand rather than using kitchen equipment. What Western cooks consider kitchen essentials, such as measuring jugs or scales, are not used as Moroccan cooks tend to use the measure of experience-using eye and feel to gauge measurements.
What one would usually find in a Moroccan kitchen is a selection of tagines. A tagine is a round, shallow earthenware dish that is made distinct by its tall, conical lid (“canoon”) that rests inside of the bottom during cooking. The lid traps steam and returns all the trapped moisture to the food, which then stays moist throughout the lengthy cooking.
Once the food is cooked, the cover is removed and the food is then served on the bottom dish, which is shallow enough for ease of serving. Stews cooked in tagines have taken the name of the vessel in which it is cooked, so that the term ‘tagine’ now refers to both the cooking vessel as well as the stew itself.
One would also find a ‘ga tagine’ in most Moroccan kitchens. This is a deep copper dish which holds the tagine during serving to protect the table from the hot
tagine. Other common kitchen items include a shallow straw basket for rolling couscous grain, and a large ceramic
platter on which couscous is served. A mortar and pestle for grinding and mixing fresh herbs and spices is essential, as is a long wooden ladle, and a long spout for sprinkling flower scented waters.
One last item of some importance is the couscousier. As its name suggests, it is used for cooking couscous, and comes in two parts, much like a steamer. The lower part
holds meat or vegetables which, when it cooks, emits the steam which then cooks the couscous which is contained in perforated upper part of the pot.

On our first day in Dubai, a typical Middle Eastern Breakfast was on the menu for me.
On entering a rather swish cafe in the worlds largest shopping center,The Dubai Mall, I  ordered the middle Eastern breakfast from the menu.
From this day forward I feel that I can now justify eating the things that I most enjoy for breakfast this breakfast was actually served with a salad….yes, ,a salad for breakfast. I have long enjoyed salad for breakfast…..I enjoy any type of fresh uncooked vegetables, at any time of the day …..
The Middle Eastern breakfast consisted of soft fresh pita bread cut into wedges served with eggs done any way and a piece of grilled Haloumi cheese. A spoonful of labneh and homus into which a well had been made in the centre of each and filled with a drizzle of a beautiful olive oil and sumac were served on the plate with this. To complete the plate was a salad of cucumber, olives and tomatoes!
It was an interesting combination of flavours and textures and most enjoyable.

Many people look at the back of the package of pasta at the cooking time and don’t realize that each type of pasta cooks for a different length of time and it’s always best to check the pasta a minute or so before it should be done.

Here’s the best way to cook pasta.

The radio required to cook pasta well is 1 litre of water to every 100 grams of pasta.  For every 500 gram package of pasta, 5 litres of water is required in a pan large enough to ensure that it doesn’t boil over during the cooking process.

Once your water is at a rolling boil, all pasta should go in at the same time. If you have chosen long pasta, you will need a fork to gently curl the strands around the pan so that they are in the boiling water as quickly as possible.

Stir the pasta around quickly when it first hits the water as this is when the starch first begins to soften and you need to keep the strands separate or they will begin to stick together.  Pasta swells as it cooks and if the strands are crowded in the water, the pasta trapped at the bottom will cook first and the pasta will not be cooked evenly.  Remember that if you are using an aluminum pan it will cook from the bottom and side but if you are using a stainless steel pan it will cook only from the bottom.

You need to keep the water in the pan at a rolling boil.  If you add 500 grams of pasta to 5 litres of water it will come back to a rolling boil very quickly.  If you put 2 kilograms of pasta in 5 litres of water it will be a very different story.  Try not to cook more than 500 grams of pasta at a time.

To every 100 grams of past and 1 litre of water, add 10 grams of salt.  The traditional way to do this is when the water is heating so that the salt disperses evenly.  The best salt to use is crystals of rock or sea salt.

Pasta should not be rinsed after cooking.

One of the greatest properties of pasta is its starch content so the last thing you want to do is wash it away.  A good pasta should retain most of its starch and leave the water relatively clear.  Poor starch in a poor quality pasta will leach into the water, leaving the water cloudy and the pasta limp and with very little bite.

Always save a little of your pasta water when draining.  This can be used to add to the sauce helping the sauce to better cling to the pasta.  The sauce and the pasta should become one entity and cling together so that every nook and cranny of the pasta is coated and saturated with sauce and flavour.

Some pastas are coloured with the use of tomato or spinach and these are the traditional ingredients used to color pasta and add a little flavour.  Aside from this, most coloured pasta are simply a gimmick used to make a dish appear more interesting.  It’s better to concentrate on the quality of the pasta.

Dried, commercially produced pastas appear to have a shiny, almost lacquered surface which is produced by pushing the dough through a stainless steel disk with holes that are coated with Teflon.  Other pastas are extruded through brass plates and this gives them a rougher surface which allows the juices and flavours of the sauces to be better absorbed.

Pasta should be cooked al dente which is a cooking term that translates as “firm to the bite.”  To see where the “bite” comes from, squash a strand of cooked pasta between your thumb and forefinger and you should see a faintly yellow thing perfectly unbroken line of pasta.  If the pasta is not made completely of durum wheat, is of poor quality, or is overcooked, the starch molecules will soften and break leaving the pasta pale and flabby.

There is no set cooking time for pasta as every pasta is different.  The best way to decide is to look at the cooking time on the packet, subtract 1 minute and continue to test the pasta as it cooks as it will continue to absorb moisture as it is tossed through the sauce.  Good quality pasta should hold up and remain loose without sticking together for enough time to toss, serve and eat.

Durum wheat pasta is a good quality pasta and the golden yellow colour is a very important characteristic.  Price is usually a good indication of the quality of pasta.  There are many corners that can be cut in the commercial production of pasta.  Lower quality wheat and faster drying times all decrease the production time making a cheaper quality product.

Buying “produce of Italy” may only mean that it is manufactured in Italy.  The best quality pasta comes from the producers who have their own wheat production areas and who are in complete control of the pasta making process from growing the durum wheat grain to the factory where the wheat is produced.  Obviously this product is better for you nutritioinally. (Look for Latina)

Dried pasta is usually made from durum wheat and water.  you can get dried egg pasta but egg pasta is usually fresh.  Dried pasta made without eggs is very light, healthy and digestible whereas egg pasta contains more protein and is therefore more difficult to digest.

A test of a good quality pasta is to look at the plate after the meal has been eaten.  There should be very little sauce left as it should be perfectly amalgamated with the pasta.  If the sauce is too thick there will be dried crusted traces on the plate.  There should be a little moisture left on the plate which shows that the pasta did not become too dry and sticky during the time it took to be eaten.

 

The aromas of the Deira Spice Souk or the Old Souk captivate your senses as soon as you enter this traditional covered spice market in Dubai.

Located in the old town in the eastern part of the city, all you need to do is follow your nose to find your way to this humming atmospheric souk filled with the aroma of high quality spices.

This ancient souk consists of several narrow lanes that are lined with spice stores echoing with the guttural singsong of Arabic while the stall holders work hard on you to unload their wares.

The majority of trading is carried out through haggling here and the spice crammed stores sell an enormous range of high quality spices with a spattering of aromatic fragrances such as frankincense and shisha from their timber tubs and jute sacs.

This is a working souk and the jute sacs overflow with the pungent smell of dried lemons, chillies and more exotic herbs and spices such as oregano and star anise.

Some stall holders sell fresh dates and a range of dried fruits such as we have never seen.

What surprised me was the colour the fruit has retained after drying. It was still very close to the natural colour that the fruit has in it’s fresh state. The sultanas were green and the persimmons were orange!

The local ethnic stall holders are very friendly and ever ready to introduce their wares giving visitors to the souk an opportunity to have an amazing experience and interact with locals to haggle for great spice and dried fruit bargains.

It is a terrible shame that the number of stall holders is slowly diminishing because of the eastern influence and the ever increasing range of spices offered by the supermarket chains. This means the opportunity to meander through these old narrow streets may well become a activity of the past.

So I recommend that while this it is still possible to experience this, take the opportunity to visit these amazing markets and add some interesting Middle Eastern flavours to your own gastronomical delights!

What we have today that is known as ‘Italian cuisine’ is a sumptuously rich and amazingly diverse collection of regional foods and traditions.

In some parts of Italy, what is perceived as commonly used Italian ingredients such as tomatoes and olive oil are in fact rarely used.

In the Alpine north, for example ingredients such as butter, bacon, cheese, cream and bread are characteristics of this region’s cuisine.

In the Po Basin region of Emilia- Romagna, rice plays a dominant role. Risotto, therefore, is one of this area’s specialities.

And so is Osso Bucco, a Milanese dish, which we will enjoy together tonight. Butter is still used more than olive oil, and homemade pasta is commonly found here.

Then there are still the cuisines of Tuscany, Rome, Naples, Calabria, Sicily – twenty one regions in all, and each with their sub-regional provinces.

Perhaps the one common thread to be found throughout is the ubiquitious pasta. That said, there are some 300 types of pasta and the countless sauces and dressings to accompany them-all serve to remind us that there is much, much more to spaghetti bolognaise, carbonara and marinara!

Another characteristic of Italian cooking is that it is highly seasonal. It may be a statement of the obvious, ie cooking only what is in season and available.

We in Australia probably do not have quite so keen an appreciation for cooking and eating in season, as we are now used to having seasonal items available all year round-thanks to the long reaching arms of our two supermarket giants.

Australian cooking doyennes Stephanie Alexander and Maggie Beer give us an insight into cooking in season, in their Tuscan Cookbook.

“We had to redefine “in season” after our first market trip. The fruits and vegetables were so fresh that they had to be used immediately… This also meant that we could never predict what we would find in the market. If it wasn’t ripe, it wasn’t there.

Buying in season means being prepared to be flexible. Time and again we found ourselves replacing this ingredient with that… because an ingredient was unavailable or a new, interesting one had presented itself.

This is the way the Tuscans around us shopped, and it is the way more of us should approach our own shopping at home.”

Italian cooking also tends to use a variety of fresh herbs.

 

A TYPICAL ITALIAN MEAL

The traditional Italian menu consists of the following:

• Antipasto
• Primo (first course)
• Secundo (second course)
• Contorno (main)
• Dolce (dessert)
• Café – coffee. (Interestingly, we learn that capuccino is strictly a breakfast-time beverage, and ordering one from midday onwards results in strange looks from Italian waiters, or even refusal to take one’s order!)
• Degustivo – ‘digestif’ liquers such as limoncello or grappa, ends the meal

It must be said here that the traditional Italian menu in its entirety is mostly used for special occasions such as feasts and weddings, rather than everyday.

But even so, the everyday menu still often consists of the first and second courses and the contorno-side dishes. There are, of course, meals that will combine the first and second courses-these are typically served when time constraints do not allow for separate courses.

One gets the impression that this is some that is beside the norm. Food is to be enjoyed and enjoyed in the company of family and friends.

 

THE ITALIAN PANTRY

Bread (pane) – An Italian meal is somewhat incomplete without bread. In Southern Italy, one is served bread even

with pasta. And there are those who enjoy bread with fruit such as grapes and melon. Italian breads tend to have a fine, close crumb and a soft texture.

Pizza – An Italian dish that needs no introduction, what was once a humble street food from Naples is now only second to hamburger in the fast food stakes the world over. Pizza in its original form was baked in wood-fired ovens, and topped only with a drizzle of olive oil, some scant herbs and for those who could afford it, a few slices of anchovy.

Prosciutto di Parma – Italy’s most famous ham is produced under strictly controlled methods. Only pigs bred, slaughtered and cured in the Parma region may be labelled Prosciutto di Parma. The pigs are fed on a diet of forage barley, corn and fruit and are at least 10 months old when slaughtered. Curing takes between 12-14 months. In the final maturing stages, the Parma ham is checked regularly. The ham curer knows by aroma, as to when a ham has been cured to perfection. Parma ham is served thinly sliced.

Aceto Balsamico – Genuine balsamic vinegar is a world apart from cheap imitations available at supermarkets. In order to procure the genuine article, one must dig deep. The real thing bears the word ‘trdizionale’ or ‘naturale’, and only the balsamic vinegars from the Modena and the Reggio Emilia region in Italy may be labelled as such. Aceto balsamico is aged for a very minimum of 12 years, however real specialities, rarely purchasable, have spent several decades in the barrel. Aceto is an aromatic concentrate, thick and dark in colour. A few drops is all that is needed to dress a salad, on carpaccio or fish. Try a few drops with ice-cream, or strawberries.

Parmigiano-Reggiano – This most famous of Italian cheeses has countless imitators. Like the Parma ham, Parmigiano-Reggiano must be made to strict standards, and can only be labelled as such if it comes from Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Mantua on the right bank of the river Po, and Bologna on the left of the River Reno. Cows are put out to graze on a meadow or fed alfalfa, and never on cattle fodder. The cheese is made between 1 April and 11 November each year. The end product is a large wheel weighing from 24-44kg, is fine-grained, has a full bodied but not strong aroma, and can be aged for up to 36 months for a very mature cheese. In Australia, one may purchase wedges of this cheese, which should only be grated just before using.

Funghi porcini – porcini mushrooms grow amongst oak, beech, chestnut, pine and spruce trees. The best ones come to us from Tuscany, where Tuscans simply refer to them as ‘funghi’. Porcini are easily recognised by their thick, bulbous stems. Thos originating from warmer climes tend to taste more intense. Porcini is available in Australia mostly in its dried from. Once reconstituted, porcini can be used in salads, in antipasti, soups and risottos.

 

 

 

On Friday, Sasha from Mad Millie Cheese Making Kits was in the store to explain her  company’s home cheese making kits to the Friday Morning Cooking Demonstration class.

 

Mad Millie Cheese provides you with the ingredients, equipment, and confidence to create a wide variety of tasty, nutritious cheeses from your kitchen. Making your own cheese and cultured dairy products has many benefits:

1. Making cheese is easy and fun! Many fresh cheeses take very little time to create and are ready to taste within days. Through our diverse cheesemaking kits, Mad Mille offers a range of easy to make cheeses, as well as some more complex ones, to help you work your way into the hobby.
2. Making your own cheese means that you know exactly what is going into the food that you and your family are eating. This means that you have better control and are better informed to make those healthy eating choices. None, of the cheeses that you make at home will have synthetic or artificial preservatives or flavour enhancers.
3. Impress your friends at get-togethers or dinner parties. Homemade cheeses make very special gifts. Your friends will be amazed at what you are able to produce, even if you are a beginner!
4. Making your own cheese saves you money. You make one average sized boutique cheese such as feta or camembert, or one litre of yoghurt at home using only one litre of fresh milk. If you use four litres of milk, you will get four small cheeses or four litres of yoghurt!

Making cheese can be a rewarding hobby. Each cheese has special techniques or cultures which make it unique. Start with the easiest cheeses to make like ricotta, mozzarella or mascarpone where you can practice getting your milk to the best temperature.  You’ll soon be able to move on to feta, halloumi, cream or cottage cheese and then to artisan cheeses and hard cheese.

Mad Millie also offers a yoghurt making kit and Sasha brought some she’d made earlier for us to taste.  Everyone got a taste of the Mad Millie yoghurt with some of our homemade stewed apricot or rhubarb fruit that we sell in the shop. It was yummy!   A yoghurt kit makes 10 litres of yoghurt from only 10 minutes of effort.  This beats the yoghurt you can buy at the supermarket hands down.

 

 

Mad Millie is a new product line for our How To Cook store and we will either have on hand or can get any of the items Mad Millie offers.  Here’s a Mad Millie recipe using their cream cheese.

It’s Easy to Make Cheese at Home | How To Cook.

How To Cook recently held it’s most successful Night of Gourmet Delights.

Read Maureen’s blog (click the link below)

 

for all the news on products and suppliers who attended.

Gourmet Food Tasting at How To Cook in Cotton Tree |.

Adopting a green lifestyle is something to which we all give thought to from time to time. It is something that I hadn’t given a great deal of thought to until I started preparing meals for my grandchildren. The information available on the subject is confusing to say the least . While many of us believe that there are very good reasons to buy organic, what exactly are they? Organic means that it has been grown without the use of herbicides and pesticides. It also means that it is healthier for us and healthier for the planet.

The singular most important factor in preparing beautiful food that I mention constantly is that I believe that we must always purchase the best quality ingredients that we can afford. Flavoursome nutritious meals begin with flavoursome and nutritious fruit and vegetables. Basically organic food is synonymous with premium quality and deep, rich taste and, as a result, optimum health. It is what we should be feeding our children and what we deserve to be feeding ourselves. Fresh additive free natural foods are essential for the healthy development of all children. Everyone wants to give their children the best start and the best start begins with what you give your children to eat

Eat with the seasons and eat well. Food purchased in season is when the quality and taste is at a premium. The use of unfussy ingredients that let the simple ingredients speak for themselves is what we try to achieve. If you have not experienced the difference between steamed zucchini or baby carrot purchased from the farmers markets and grown without chemicals and one purchased from the supermarket, you should try it…it’s a life changing experience!!

Start your move to organic by taking small steps. Think about the foods that you eat most of. Families with young children consume a lot of baby food. Babies are much more vunerable to the effects of pesticides and there is a lot of pesticide residue on food. Milk and cheese are household staples so look for organic brands. There are some fruit and vegetables that you should buy organic as often as you can because they are the most heavily sprayed. Amongst these are raisins, sultanas, green beans, cucumbers and strawberries. Try to buy the organic products made from grains such as corn, wheat and oats as these are often heavily infected with pesticides

Milk and cheese are hosehold staples so try to choose the organic brands.

When preparing puree vegetables for babies choose organically grown vegetables they can be either steamed or boiled. If they are steamed you will need to use either baby formula or fresh vegetable juice to provide the liquid to allow you to puree them. Pureed vegetables freeze very well so larger quantities can be prepared and frozen in usable quantities. If the vegetables are boiled, be sure to use as little water as possible and save this to add to the puree, remembering that you will save the water soluble vitamins but those susceptible to heat will be lost but this unfortunately un avoidable . This is still better than the store purchased product.

I would like to share with you a recipe for biscuits that I make for my own grandchildren. I remember these biscuits vividly as a child as there were always plenty available when we visited my grandmother.

This is her recipe and I have a number of small biscuit cutters in various shapes and sizes that I use to make the experience more fun. I use all organic ingredients.
Nana’s Biscuits
Ingredients

• 2 tablesp butter
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 2eggs
• 2 cups self raising flour
• 1 tablesp vanilla

Method

1. Cream butter and sugar. Add vanilla and beat well
2. Add eggs one at a time and continue beating
3. Sift in the flour and vanilla and fold gently until mixture is smooth
4. Spoon out dessert spoon sized balls of mixture onto a greased tray
5. Bake at 150 deg for 20minutes

I recently made an unexpected trip to Singapore for a week. My eldest son’s 40th birthday was looming and the eight hour trip to Singapore was a far more attractive option to the 24 hour trip to London where he resides.

When the opportunity presented itself, I decided that it was a good option. Since Mark was in Singapore for work, the idea was that I would spend the evenings with him, experiencing the food of Singapore and attend the various cooking schools that I had researched during the day.

It is quite some time since I visited Singapore and memories and reminders of past visits came flooding back as I exited Singapore Airport.  The “smell” of Singapore is something that one never forgets.

Come April every year the Tembusu and Angsana trees perfume the Singapore air already heavily laden with moisture. The Angsana trees are massive and when in bloom whole neighbourhoods are scented with their perfume. Tembusa trees can be spotted all over the island lining roadways and in university campuses

Also at this time of year, the large feathery flowers of the Durian tree give off their heavy, sour, buttery odour. These flowers are closed during the day, giving off their heavy perfume at night in preparation for the bearing of the fruit in June, July and August.

The combination of all these perfumes is unforgettable.

It is said that Singapore is in perpetual summer as there are no seasons to speak of other than the “Rainy Season” and the “Sunny Season”.  Singapore is a large bustling island city of some 5 million inhabitants that comes alive only after 10 am and continues throughout the day and well into the night.

Singaporeans appear to eat all day every day and the aroma of spicy foods permeates the air on almost every street corner. The hawkers markets have moved from one location to another over the years but are still very much in existence.

Our first evening visit was to the hawkers markets at Gluttons Bay where we sat on the bay and enjoyed the most beautiful fresh BBQ seafood cooked to perfection. We sat for hours watching the comings and goings of the water traffic and enjoying the balmy evening air.

A trip to Singapore is not complete without a visit to Boat Quay. Boat Quay was once, as the name suggests, a quay on the Singapore River where the traders moored their boats whilst dealing in Singapore. Apart from the Irish pub where a pint of cold beer is available, the atmosphere and setting is informal and Boat Quay is essentially a restaurant precinct.  Thai, Indian, Italian, Chinese, you name it.  Chilli Crab is offered at almost every restaurant, all of which look similar from the outside, have tables on the river and persistent touts making offers to try to entice you in. This area is close to the business district and is a good place to enjoy a quiet drink while looking out across the river at Raffles Place or along the skyscrapers of the CBD.

The main hawkers market in this part of the city is Lau Pa Sat (meaning old market). The market had its beginnings as a simple building supported on pylons over the water on Telok Ayer Bay in the early 1800’s. Today it is housed in an historic building in the central business district .The market is located in and around a beautiful old building that had its beginnings in Victorian times. It has been moved and revived several times, the cast iron supports and arches being reinstated each time. As with most of Singapore, it comes alive at night being heavily supported by locals. The food was great and the atmosphere simple and relaxed

We met friends at the restaurant “Indocine” This restaurant is also at Boat Quay on the opposite side of the river to the restaurants discussed earlier. It is set up on the terrace outside the Asian Civilisation Museum.. The setting is beautiful. Finely set tables on the terrace with views of the Singapore River and looking back across the river to the high rises of the business district. Vietnamese, Laos and Khymer influenced fusion food at its best. We enjoyed it enough to visit twice.

After dinner our friends took us to the Singapore Cricket Club where they are members. In all of the visits to Singapore over the years this was the first opportunity to visit the Club, which has always been one of the premier sports and social clubs in the City. The Club situated on the Padang stands in the centre of the city’s colonial heart. The club had humble beginnings with 28 members in 1853 but by the 1880’s membership had grown to over 400 and membership was seen as a ‘social feather in the cap” by the powerbrokers and decision makers in the government of the day. Today the Club has over 3,000 active members.

And the Cooking Schools……… I booked into three different schools and disappointingly, each was cancelled because they did not have the numbers required to run the classes!

However, despite this, I had a lovely visit with my son and we celebrated his birthday in style in Singapore.

I started to write this in London when I visited earlier this year to visit with my son and his family and to meet my newest grandchild……Miss Sophie Ann Cameron.

The weather was foul in London at the time and as a result, I spent a great deal of time looking at food and retail trends in order to keep out of the sleet and snow.

And what an experience that was…

I spent some time in a store called “Wholefoods” in High Street, Kensington. This is a most amazing store and one of a kind in London. The concept revolves around foods that are cooked in their own kitchens daily, in quantities reminiscent of what you would see in the entire Myer Centre in Brisbane.

Here the threads of multiculturalism as we see in London today are visible with what seems like every cuisine known to man represented. Apart from the prepared foods that sees the store teaming with people in the middle of the day streaming in to enjoy the incredible array of food available, this store is a retail delicatessen.

They have an enormous leg of Jamon from an Iberico pig set up on a metal stand so that you can order what you require and stand and watch while they slice it off for you.

The retail displays have to be seen to be believed. Tables are piled high with great wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano paired with crates of Prosecco and various breads and meats to enjoy. Another table was piled high with wheels of Provolone Mandarone and another full of wheels of the ever popular Quickes Cheddar.

The range of take home meal solutions both ready to heat and others prepared and ready to cook is enormous and they look amazing. I enjoyed the bakery particularly with its displays of beautiful freshly baked breads in displays that look almost too good to touch to remove even one loaf . The retail displays were fantastic. In short, it is a very glamorous deli and takeaway.

Next was a visit to another favourite spot of mine at Duke of York Square in Kings Road, Chelsea.

Partridges is a very beautiful general store with a very large and impressive gold PARTRIDGES sign on its shop front. It sells beautifully packaged foods and drinks imported from their near neighbours, France, Italy, Spain and in fact from many parts the world.

If I were a Londoner, it is where I would go to find a special gift for a “foodie” or to find a special ingredient for a recipe.

Vegetables like beans and mange tout are all topped and tailed and cut to the same length ready to be cooked and served all packed in rows in the refrigerators… all looking almost too beautiful to touch.
Every variety of artisan pasta that you can think of along with much, much more is available.

I spent many hours there simply looking and learning and reading labels. The merchandising in these places is amazing as they can truly “pile it high and watch it fly” as, in London, they have a customer base that we, in retail, all dream of.

I stood and watched a man lovingly polish and stack an enormous crate of very “green looking” mangoes (“green looking” to a North Queensalander!!) into a very artistically arranged pile then carefully place the sign……. Mangoes 2 pounds each!! (and it is mango season here also)

Last but not least was a visit to Harrods Food Hall. I try always to go there as it was the first of the truly memorable food merchandising houses that I recall from my earliest visits overseas.

It was once something that was one of a kind. It is still one of a kind but now there other facilities that compete with the Harrods Food Hall and do a very good job of it. Harrods still has the edge when it comes to variety, packaging, range of product and presentation. The range and presentation of fruit and vegetables is amazing. Nowhere else would you see such a variety of fish roe of every description. It is always a learning experience as I always see things that are in season in Europe that we just read about in recipe books. I saw an amazing array of citrus along with a huge display of tomatoes of every description, size and colour. It is always a pleasure to spend time in these places and a trip to London is not complete without a trip to this store.